


Revealed

by Sarren



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Big Reveal, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2797316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarren/pseuds/Sarren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry should have found a way to tell Jo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revealed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seektheinfinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seektheinfinite/gifts).



> Big thanks to mollivanders for a great beta job.

_When one outlives loved ones, not once but many times, it’s important to avoid the temptation to stop caring, to keep people at arm’s length so as not to suffer the grief that comes with their inevitable demise. It’s important also to remember that loved ones suffer loss too, when one disappears from their lives, when one must perforce move on to avoid discovery. It’s a decision that can never be made lightly._

 

Every time it is the same: the first gasp of awareness, as though startled awake, then the panicked choke as he inhales water, and the instinctive desperate flail towards the surface. Sometimes, if he dies at night, the water is pitch black, but thankfully, whatever fate or magic that sends him on this never-ending circle of death and life has so far landed him unerringly the right way up, so that it usually doesn’t take very long to swim to the surface.

Thankfully, tonight the water’s cold but not the sort of icy that numbs his extremities. The wind chill, on the other hand, is freezing on his wet, naked skin as he wades out of the shallows. He’s dreading the walk to the nearest working pay phone. It’d almost be a relief if a police vehicle showed up. He really should start stashing a set of clothes around here, at the rate he’s getting killed nowadays. 

He has no idea how he’ll explain this to Jo. For all the times he’s nearly died around her, somehow he’s never found the right words to explain his existence. Now it’s finally happened – a blackmail case that’s ended in three murders, including his – and he hadn’t prepared her. He wonders if she’s still searching the area, convinced he can’t have gone far, or if she’s questioning her very sanity right now. He feels terrible at what she must be going through.

“Is it always this exact spot or are there public indecency files on you in other places too?”

“Detective!”

His hands fly to cover himself as he stares at her in shock.

“Catch,” she says, and he instinctively grabs at the item she throws at him. It’s soft - a large bath towel, he realizes, as it unfolds in his hands.

“I stopped by your place and picked up some clothes for you,” Jo says matter-of-factly. “Abe gave them to me. He says try not to be late for dinner, he’s cooking Marinara.”

Henry realizes he’s gaping in a very uncouth manner and closes his mouth. He quickly towels himself dry. The wind is cold and he can’t stop shivering as he reaches for the clothes piled on the rock next to the one Jo’s perched on.

“Oh, and I’m invited,” Jo says, staring out at the river as he gets dressed. She turns back to look at him as he’s shrugging into his coat. “Unless you’d rather have some alone time. I imagine coming back from the dead probably takes it out of you.”

“Wait...” Henry says to her back, as she starts back up the path. Her car is parked by the road. She doesn’t stop; he’s not sure she’s heard.

Once they’re both in the car Jo starts the ignition and turns on the heater for him. He hopes that’s a positive sign, but then she stares out at the bay and doesn’t say anything, doesn’t start driving.

“Abe told you?” Henry ventures finally.

“No, I figured it out myself,” Jo says, surprising him. “He just reassured me I wasn’t going crazy. He also told me he’s been after you to tell me the truth for a while.”

Ah. “I was too afraid,” he admits.

“Of me?”

“Of your not believing me. I’ve been down this road before. It didn’t end well.”

Jo glances at him. “You want to tell me about it?” It’s an opening. More than he has any right to expect. And he owes her the explanation.

The interior of the car is warming up, but Henry shivers still at the memory. “My first wife, Nora. She had me committed to an asylum. I was restrained, tortured…experimented on.”

“When was that?”

“1815.” 

Jo doesn’t react with surprise, or disbelief, as Henry expects. “Okay,” she says, finally, as if more to herself than anything. Henry stares at her profile as she gazes out at the river.

“You believe me?”

“About your age? Why not? I watched you bleed to death in front of me, and then literally disappear from under my hands as I performed CPR on you.” Her tone is dispassionate, and that’s not Jo, not his friend. He can’t even imagine how she must have felt.

“I _am_ sorry about that,” he says, putting a hand on her arm, trying to convey his sincerity through touch. “That couldn’t have been easy for you.”

“You could say that,” she shrugs. 

She hasn’t appeared to notice his hand. He takes it away. “So, how did you—”

“I freaked a bit, of course. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen in the real world. But some time into my second whisky everything started to fall into place. Since this whole stalker case I’ve been worried about you. For your safety, of course. But about your mental state, too. I mean, you’re a bit odd,” she says, sounding a little apologetic.

Henry nods. He can’t argue with that.

“Nothing wrong with that. But you kept the fact that you were being harassed a secret for months. You work with cops, Henry; seems like something you might mention. And the way you were ready to run, to just pick up and leave your life behind. It got me thinking about the way you talk about things that have happened in the past, like you were actually there. And the sort of things you say, like joking about it taking centuries to become so eccentric, or the time you said, ‘you live long enough, anything can happen’.”

“You’ve a good memory.”

“I’m a cop. I pay attention to detail.” The car is toasty warm now. Jo turns off the engine and it’s very silent; the sound of the traffic overhead doesn’t penetrate the car.

“I started thinking about the time you got taken hostage at the university and told Hansen to shoot you and the time we were in the woods and you deliberately distracted the garage owner. You must have known the chances were that he’d shoot you. We were worried you had a bit of a death wish, but then I realized that if you were immortal that would explain everything.”

“You began to believe I was immortal?”

“Of course not, that would be crazy,” she says, a hint of humor in her voice. “I got to thinking about your stalker, and how he believed he was immortal. I was beginning to wonder if you shared his delusion. I did wonder what made him fixate on you specifically. You say you talked to him at first, until he started to frighten you. If you believed you were immortal too then everything made sense.”

“I see.”

“Except that you really _are_ immortal.” Now she looks at him, her eyes sharp with alarm. “Does that mean he is too? His body’s not gonna disappear from the morgue?” 

“No, he wasn’t immortal. Unfortunately.”

“Why is it unfortunate?”

“Because my stalker is, which means Walker was merely a disturbed individual that he set up to take the fall.”

“That’s bad. You should have told me, Henry. Or are you planning to run after all?”

Henry tilts his head back against the headrest. “Honestly, I haven’t completely decided. Adam – that’s what he calls himself – said he was going away for a while. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. Abe thinks we should stay and see it through – with your help – and it’s his decision too.”

“Because Abe is?”

“My son.”

Jo doesn’t even blink. “Of course he is.”

“You’re taking this very calmly.”

“Surprisingly so, all things considered.”

“So if you didn’t believe I was immortal, how did you know to come here?”

“You disappearing in front of me was pretty convincing evidence that something was different about you. Suddenly everything else that’s happened to you started to make sense. That train crash you survived and somehow left the scene unnoticed. If you hadn’t left your pocket watch behind we might never have met. Not long after that, I could have sworn you fell off a building, but I was drugged, I must have been hallucinating, right?” Jo gives him a disappointed look at that. “Finally, the mystery of the empty cab in the river, with the marks on the interior as if someone had tried desperately to escape the vehicle. It wasn’t until I was thinking about finding your pocket watch on the train that I remembered finding your pocket watch on the floor of the cab too. You were in it when it went down, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

“At first I assumed you’d gotten out of the cab somehow and stripped off your clothes to swim to shore and that’s why you were picked up naked by the river, but then I looked up your file and you were also picked up for public indecency in the same spot just after the train crash.” For the first time Jo looks a bit upset. “You drowned in that cab, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So I figured I’d come here, see if my theory was right or if it was time for me to start seeing a therapist as well. Until I saw you emerge from the water I still didn’t _really_ believe it.”

“You understand why I didn’t tell you.”

“I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“So, what now?”

“I don’t know. Apparently there is an immortal serial killer on the loose. I can’t just ignore that.”

“If you tell anyone, best case scenario they’ll think _you’re_ crazy. Worst case scenario, I end up dissected. Again. I cannot begin to tell you how much I do not ever want to go through that again.” Henry shivers again, and not just because the warm air has leeched from the car.

“Look, we can’t come up with a plan till I have all the facts,” she says. “You are going to tell me everything you know - about your stalker, about immortality, everything. Got it?”

“I will, I promise,” Henry agrees.

“But, first…” Jo flashes him an arch look. “I’ve got to ask. What’s with the skinny dipping?”

“I really have no idea. I’ve often wondered where my clothes end up.”

“Huh,” she says, sounding thoughtful.

For the first time in a long time Henry thinks things might be okay. Jo finally knows about him and hasn’t hauled him off to Bellevue. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to trust anyone with his secret.

His fingers are aching a bit from the chill. Henry rubs his hands together and blows on them. Jo looks at him. “We’d best get you home,” she says. She starts the engine again, checks for oncoming traffic and then pulls out on to the road. “I must admit, I am looking forward to a home cooked meal.” 

“You won’t be disappointed,” Henry says, and grins at her. “Abe’s Spaghetti Marinara is to die for.”

“Ha, ha,” Jo says, deadpan. They pull up at a set of traffic lights. “Henry,” she says, turning to look at him. Her face looks drawn in the dim light inside the car. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she says, and Henry feels a stab of guilt as he’s reminded what he’s put Jo through tonight. The lights turn green and she accelerates through the intersection. Henry’s opening his mouth to apologize, somehow, but Jo’s already speaking again, and she appears to have had a sudden change of mood. “Fair warning,” she says, flashing him a grin. ”Next time I have to come get you, the photo’s going up on the board at work.”

Now there’s an incentive not to get himself killed if he’s ever heard one.

 

_Moving on, leaving loved ones behind, means leaving a part of oneself behind as well. And when you’ve lived as long as I have, it sometimes feels that there’s not much oneself left. Finding a person, or, if you’re extremely fortunate, more than one person who is willing to stand by you no matter the cost, well—that is a worth beyond price._


End file.
